The thoughts and experiences of a man who enjoys challenging arts, unplanned wanderings and intelligent conversations.

10 August 2016

BCSA "Get to Know You" Social (August 2016)

I have taken so many pictures of my smazeny syr, which is what I always eat at the monthly BCSA Get To Know You Socials, that I have to think a bit to try and get a different picture and this month I settled on the view from directly above. I seem to have had a good portion of chips this month.

The subtle difference in the photo is the table cloth. This was a welcome return to the ones used some time ago that had been replaced with plastic mess-friendly ones with an old map of the world motif. I never liked the design and found it odd that the Czechoslovak Bar and Restaurant would use a map that did not have Czechoslovakia on it.

That big surprise over it was another excellent evening full of rich conversations. There were a few new faces this month and I moved around the table a few times to meet them all. One of the conversations we had, and other common one, was language and particularly the way that the languages differ in both form and the way that they change. I remember discussing tenses, I can never remember their names, and saying that a new (to me at least) tense was emerging in English with people talking about the past in the present tense, e.g. "I go into the bar ...". This may be related to another current fashion of writing literature in the first person continuous present, e.g. "I enter the dark room slowly ...".

Despite this being the holiday season we had more people there than we had had for a while, around twenty at various times, and it was a fabulous evening, even by the high standard set by the socials.